#It's time for the Mixers Showdown #2
The contest will begin tomorrow Sunday May 19th at 4pm Eastern (GMT -5) Be sure to come join the fun on the DIY_eJuice Discord - The contest will take place in the Mixer Showdown channel. If you missed the fun from Showdown #1 - you can see the aftermath HERE and see the development of the recipes in the Red-Team and Blue-Team channels on Discord.
Contest Details
- Teams will be given a RULE - either a requirement or a restriction on the flavors they may use
- Teams will also be presented with an INSPIRATION (a photo, song, quote, etc) to base their recipe on
- At this point, the teams will go to their designated (and separate) channels and begin to develop a recipe
- The clock will start and teams have approximately 30mins to complete their recipe
- Before the deadline (3:40pm) each team must post their finished list of ingrdients as a reply to this message
- The contestants then have an additional 5 mins (3:45pm) to to come up with a Name and a Description which they will add to the list of ingredients by ediitng their post.
At this point, the judging phase of the contest begins. Each Judge will award each recipe up to 25 points based on the following criteria . . .
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|Taste|1-10pts|if it doesn't taste good, nothing else matters|
|Originality|1-5pts|is the recipes a remix of a tried and tested idea? or something never seen before?|
|Accessibility|1-5pts|are the flavors readily available and used in many recipes? or something obscure that few people know about?|
|Inspiration|1-5pts|how well does the juice capture the INSPIRATION for the contest?|
Everyone is invited to mix the recipes and give their opinions via comments and/or UpVotes. The judges' scores will be combined and added to the number of UpVotes each recipe receives (before 4pm Eastern on Tuesday May 21th) to determine the final score. The team with the highest score wins!
The People Involved
Red Team
u/foment_life - Culinary Master & Creator of Blue Eyes White Dragon
u/gunsforhandss - author of I Feel Like Giving Up DIY... - who has changed his mind!
u/humanpuck - co-creator of I Kheer U who loves harassing senior citizens (grin)
Blue Team
u/eyemakepizza - Ice Cream Lover and Discord Whipping Boy
u/UnappreciatedRobot - aka William - High Octane Trash Talker
u/Kittybit8 - Corner Dweller who puts Nordic Flavor into the World of Buddha
Judges
We have three players returning from our previous contest to rate the recipes . . .
u/HocusKrokus - Flower Child and Dog Lover
u/AlfredPudding - Mixing WunderKid and member of the winning team in Showdown #1
u/ID10-T - King Maker & Pun Master
The Details
The Rule
Your recipe must use exactly FIVE different flavor concentrates - no more, no less
You may use any flavors - but you must include five of them
The Inspiration
Big Rock Candy Mountain
The Results
The winner is the BLUE TEAM
Congratulations to u/eyemakepizza u/UnappreciatedRobot and u/Kittybit8
|BLUE|Taste|Originality|Accessibility|Inspiration|Total| |:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:| |ID10-T|6|5|3|3|17| |Kopel|7|5|2|1|17| |Alfred|5|5|4|3|17|
Judges=51pts + UpVotes=6pts = GRAND TOTAL = 57pts
|RED|Taste|Originality|Accessibility|Inspiration|Total| |:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:| |ID10-T|4|2|4|4|14| |Kopel|5|3|4|4|16| |Alfred|4|2|5|3|14|
Judges=44pts + UpVotes=7pts = GRAND TOTAL = 51pts
Please mix up the creations and let us know what you think with your comments and your votes! If you'd like to compete in future showdowns, or would be willing to judge, please leave a message in the Mixer Showdown Lobby on Discord or reply to the General Comments section below.
Please do not reply directly to this message - ONLY reply to the "General Comments" or one of the Teams Recipes so that voting remains streamlined. Thank you.
Strawberried in Stone
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Sugary sweet peach and strawberry hard candy with a twist. Keeping it simple for Blue teams simple minds.
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|Vendor|Flavor|Percentages| |:-|:-|:-| |INW|Shisha Straw|3.5| |TFA|Juicy peach|2| |FA|White Peach|2| |OoO|Powdered Sugar|2| |TFA|Sweet & Tart|1.5| |||| ||||
Tate: 5 This is - okay- but it's a bit out of balance and I'm struggling with some of the elements. I'm not getting hard candy at all, and it's something closer to a musk candy. The Sweet & Tart and Powdered Sugar are a bit forward and just not meshing at all with your fruit base. The Strawberry/Peach combo isn't bad and I'm not getting that violent reaction from TPA Juicy Peach I was expecting. I've got a juicy vibe from the fruit, but the awkwardness of your candy additives it just taking too much away from it.
Originality: 3 Strawberry and Peach, while a good combination, are as old as vaping. If it had worked with your hard candy base I might be swayed slightly but they just didn't merge to make that happen.
Accessibility: 4 You can at least buy everything for this recipe in one place at BCF. I'm not really a fan of OoO and they're not widely reviewed or known, however, so I feel you lost a little bit there.
Inspiration: 4 You went a lot more directly for the candy in the title of the song, but I just don't see hobo paradise in it.
A fantastic effort by Red Team, Total Score 16
Taste: 4 --- This one just really needs some balance work. I'm also taking off a point for lack of accuracy here because OOO Powdered Sugar and TPA Sweet and Tart are not reading as a hard candy at all. It's more like a pixie stick that's aggressively peach flavored.
Originality: 2 --- Unfortunately there isn't much creativity at work here. The combination of fruits isn't super original, and adding some candy additives doesn't fix that.
Accessibility: 5 --- These are all very common flavors and nothing here is super niche.
Inspiration: 3 --- While you did shoot for a candy, I am honestly really bummed that nobody tried something more thematic.
Total: 14 Points
Red Team
Taste: 4
It’s probably nothing that can’t be fixed in revision, but this tastes like a rough draft that needs some work. I get the strawberry and peach and it’s been candified... but it isn’t hard candy, it’s more like a weird powdery candy. The fruit flavor itself is a bit softened and lacks that punch of candy flavor, but it also has a perfumy edge like over-flavoring. Double whammy. I don’t know if the strawberry and peaches just aren’t playing super nice together or if it’s an overabundance Sweet & Tart combined with Powdered Sugar, but something isn’t fitting together just right. I’d tear it down to just the strawberry and peach and to make sure that really works first, and then if it does, add small amounts of whatever candy additives - these or maybe others - and make sure if they work too.
Originality: 2
Strawberry + Peach is an oldie (but goodie) combo, nothing groundbreaking there. If these sugary candy flavors really worked to turn it into hard candy that would’ve been some extra points here.
Accessibility: 4
Both teams get docked at least one point on accessibility for less common ingredients that aren’t easy or cheap to source literally everywhere. In this case, the OoO Powdered Sugar. Yes, you can get it at BCF. Yes, I think it should be in everyone’s arsenal. But it’s not easily available for everyone.
Inspiration: 4
I’m a little disappointed that both teams seemed to take inspiration from only the title, would have loved to have seen some booze and bacco busted out for a song about hobo heaven. But at least the red team went after a full fledged candy.
Total Score: 14
#"Hey Red Team, We Can Have Our Cake AND Vape It Too"
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- 3% VT Fizzy Sherbet
- 1.5% FA Bilberry
- 2.5% FW Blueberry
- 3% JF Yellow Cake
- 2% VT Yogurt Drink
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We stole the candy from Candy Mountain and stuffed it into a cupcake. We made sure to bury red team in the process. Since we're team BLUE... blueberry!
JF Yellow Cake makes the base for the cupcake. VT Yogurt Drink makes the impromptu frosting loaded with delicious Blueberry from FA Bilberry and FW Blueberry. VT Fizzy Sherbet brings the pop rocks! All that backed by some lemon to brighten the Blueberry from VT Yogurt Drink and VT Fizzy Sherbet.
Taste: 6
That tastes pretty good. I’ll guess I'll buy the Fizzy Sherb as Pop Rocks thing, there’s a little tingle there. Also, blueberry cake frosting. Actually blueberry-lemon cake frosting, there’s a lot more lemon showing up here from than just a little to pop that blueberry out. The cake itself is a bit buried. It’s there, but it’s getting seriously drowned by the blueberry-lemon-cream. It seems like the blue team could have ditched the bilberry and used used something that reinforced the bakery instead. I’m being pretty nitpicky here for recipe that tastes quite pleasant though. Someone on the blue team must have a knack for neutralizing the potential yuckiness of a terrifying amount of FA Bilberry because this has no problems there.
Originality: 5
Pop Rocks in a cupcake, that’s something I’ve not seen before. Funfetti sprinkles, sure, but this is a big step up from that. Also, Fizzy Sherb in a bakery, period. That’s something new and interesting. Max points.
Accessibility: 3
Both teams get docked at least one point on accessibility for less common ingredients that aren’t easy or cheap to source literally everywhere. In this case, the two VT things. Blue team also gets one additional point off for the JF Yellow Cake. Personally, I think all three of these ingredients are staples that everyone should own, but even in the US you’d have to shop at two different places to get them all.
Inspiration: 3
I’m a little disappointed that both teams seemed to take inspiration from only the title, would have loved to have seen some booze and bacco busted out for a song about hobo heaven. In addition, blue team only barely related it to title with their fizzy sherb trick.
Total Score: 17
Taste: 7 This is surprisingly pleasant. The fizzy sherbet is coming across nice at the cost of adding a bit more citrus than your bakery base can handle. The frosting type vibe I'm getting off of Yogurt Drink makes for a great flavor. I think the grain is acceptable, but I'm not a huge fan of bakeries in the first place. With only 5 ingredients it would be difficult to manage this much frosting and this much bakery. Very surprisingly FA Bilberry did not kill me at 1.5% and actually tastes okay.
Originality: 5 It was a bold move to try to cram fizzy sherbert into a cupcake. I've seen some "candy in a cake" ideas but they've never ever been executed well. I love the idea, and I look forward to seeing someone maybe build on this to perfect it
Accessibility: 2 This was difficult to decide because while I think all of these flavors are good and most mixers should have and use them, using two VT flavors and one JF, making whomever chose to pursue this recipe buy from at least two places hurts you here a little more than Red team's choices.
Inspiration: 3 You followed the title of the song well enough, but I feel like you could've gone a bit farther with the hobo paradise thing and really got crazy with it.
Overall, a great effort. Total score: 17
Taste: 5 --- I really struggled with scoring this because the flavor itself isn't bad in any way. It's actually a pretty tasty overall profile. Unfortunately I really have to deduct points for accuracy. You shot for the moon with trying to pull off cake filled with candy and it just doesn't read that way. It ends up detracting from the candy qualities of Fizzy Sherbet and the cake qualities of Yellow Cake resulting in a muddled frosting-like thing. The combo of Yoghurt Drink and blueberry is really delicious though, and I'm sure with some work this could be even better.
Originality: 5 --- This gets an easy five score for originality. Going for a cake stuffed with candy is super admirable and I've never seen it done before.
Accessibility: 4 --- I have a hard time gauging the accessibility of a recipe. I imagine some of these flavors are harder to find, but I think they're all super essential tools that everyone should have. I have to remove a point because you can't get JF Yellow Cake and VT Yoghurt Drink at the same place.
Inspiration: 3 --- Everyone gets a three this time. You did something with candy so that qualifies this recipe, but I'm seriously disappointed that nobody tried something interesting with the theme.
Total: 17 Points
So I missed the competition because I was watching my niece and my nephew but I am glad we do get some time to give our input even if we are not a judge. As always I am going to start with what I learned from the competition this week. First, It is possible to use fizzy sherbet w/ yogurt & cake (maybe it was just me but I didn't know fizzy sherbet would work with anything remotely yogurt or bakery). The application of fizzy sherbet to attain a pop rock texture was something I never thought of and I am glad I know it now. The second thing I learned was that you can use TFA/TPA Sweet & Tart at a percentage higher than 0.5% I thought I was stuck using this 0.5% and under and was using it as an additive but now I know I can take it higher. That being said after mixing up both recipes I have to give my vote to the Red team, I love the simple strawberry peach mix they went with and the ooo powdered sugar just sealed the deal for me. I got alot of love for the people in the discord group and its awesome to be able to go back and see their process behind the recipe as well. For a beginner I like seeing the cause i feel like i would learn something new about flavors every time. Big props to both teams for originality and teaching me something new
GENERAL COMMENTS
Please reply here or to either of the recipes posted by the competitors. Thank you!
So... I could volunteer to be a judge, but I'm not sure any teams would want me as one of the judges. Maybe if there was a bunch of tobacco specialists...